Labor’s so-called “closing loopholes” bill is set to pass parliament after deals with the crossbench, including inserting a Greens amendment creating a right to disconnect from work for employees.
On Wednesday the Greens announced the Albanese government had accepted the right to disconnect, which will prevent employees being punished for refusing to take unreasonable work calls or answer emails in their unpaid personal time.
The closing loopholes bill makes changes to the definition of casual employment, and gives power to the Fair Work Commission to create minimum conditions in the gig economy and the road transport industry.
Labor won the final two Senate votes for the bill from the independents Lidia Thorpe and David Pocock. Shortly after 6pm on Wednesday the government won a procedural vote guaranteeing the bill will come to a final vote in the Senate by Thursday afternoon.
The Jacqui Lambie Network, United Australia party and One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts voted with the Coalition but a furious shadow workplace relations minister, Michaelia Cash, acknowledged Labor now had the votes to ram the bill through.
Cash accused Labor of being elected on a “lie” of transparency, claiming it had “trashed” the Senate’s ability to review the legislation.
Lambie said it was a “kick in the guts for democracy” as the government had taken a “shortcut” to pass “some of the biggest [industrial relations] changes in years”.
Earlier, the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said his party had decided to back the bill after it won the right to disconnect, meaning that “when you clock off, you’ll be able to switch off”.
“Unless you are getting paid for it … you should be able to ignore those calls and those messages that come in,” he told reporters in Canberra.
The Greens workplace relations spokesperson, Barbara Pocock, said the new right applies to “all employees” but the amendment “won’t disturb all kinds of changes where people are paid to be on call or where their job description requires it or where there’s an emergency”.
Barbara Pocock said the amendment would allow “reasonable contact” including “if there is a particular need like a change in your working conditions you need to know about, [a change] in your place or time of work”.
She said employees who believed they were being contacted unreasonably would first take the issue up with their employer and, if it is not resolved, can then go to the Fair Work Commission for a stop order, punishable by a fine if the employer does not comply.
“The right to disconnect has to be enforceable,” she said. “A worker has got to have some backup when they say ‘that’s not OK to contact me seven times on a Sunday’, as a nurse recently said to me, [in an instance of] unpaid contact.”
Barbara Pocock said the changes would be phased in over six months, to give employers time to “adapt, listen and learn”, with a longer phase-in for small business.
In December David Pocock and the Jacqui Lambie Network combined to help pass the same job, same pay provisions of the closing loopholes bill but delayed the gig economy, road transport industry and casual work provisions until 2024.
In a Senate committee report on Thursday, David Pocock warned the gig economy changes go “far beyond the scope of capturing the gig platform courier drivers and would impact sectors like personal and aged-care providers”.
In a statement, David Pocock confirmed that the government had agreed to tighten the rules for when the Fair Work Commission can order minimum conditions for “employee-like” gig economy workers.
He said “the changes the crossbench has negotiated make it a much simpler, fairer bill that preserves choice and flexibility”.
“If you want to remain a casual you can, but if you want to convert to permanent there is now a better process for doing so while still preserving a businesses right to refuse on fair and reasonable grounds.”
“As a result of our changes, existing independent contractors can now elect to keep their arrangement unchanged.”
Thorpe reached a deal with Labor in return for changes to casual provisions making it a workplace right to request to convert to permanent work.
“This is to protect casuals from being punished by their employer for requesting conversion to full or part-time employment,” she said.
Anthony Albanese defended the right to disconnect earlier on Wednesday.
“What we’re simply saying is, someone who’s not being paid 24 hours a day shouldn’t be penalised if they’re not online and available 24 hours a day,” he told reporters in Canberra.
On Tuesday Burke said it was “unreasonable” workers were expected to work out of office hours but it was reasonable for employers to send emails or contact people for shifts. The government didn’t “want to get in the way of that”, he said.
